Described by journalists as “the Anne Frank of Sarajevo,” Zlata Filipović lived through the beginning of the Bosnian War in Sarajevo. She kept a diary throughout her experience, illuminating the plight of children Coming of Age During War. Through luck and the support of her good friend and neighbor, Maja, her diary was selected for publication in Sarajevo and later internationally. Her celebrity led to passage out of Sarajevo to Paris, where she began to advocate on behalf of those left behind. Since then, Filipović has continued to work through writing, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations to raise awareness of war and its long-term impacts, particularly on children.

As told through the eyes of a precocious, observant, and witty girl, the stark realities of the war take on an immediacy that memoir lacks. The record is not filtered or reconstructed but spilled out on paper, as in confidence with a close friend. Zlata Filipović writes in the Preface that the immediacy of her diary impacts readers such that they often forget that as an adult in Dublin, she is not perpetually 12, living in darkness and war. Zlata the child lives on in the diary, a warm and relatable young character trying to survive and stay hopeful even when the world is dark and full of horror.